


The peaceable kingdom.

by orange_crushed



Category: Twilight - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-16
Updated: 2011-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-18 03:33:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_crushed/pseuds/orange_crushed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"That one is hard to hold,<br/>but try telling you that."<br/>-Paul Westerberg</p>
            </blockquote>





	The peaceable kingdom.

When she was ten, her mother's boyfriend had shot a coyote and put it in the garbage can, the blood still leaking from the bullet hole. She'd gone out after dark and looked inside with her pink battery-powered flashlight.

"They're disease carriers," he'd said. "They look like dogs but they ain't, so don't you try and play with them, Isabella."

The body had smelled like copper and dirt, warm places underground, the desert after a long-awaited rain: trembling new grass and rot and earth. His blood had been black.

When she meets the vampire, she knows-

-things happen for a reason.

 

 

"I know what you are," she says. They are in the woods and he is standing beside her and she can feel him and not feel him at the same time, like a hole in space; Edward, who cannot really exist. Edward, good at biology and yet lacking the essentials: pulse. Sweat. Warm skin. She swallows her spit, hard.

"Say it," he tells her. He is so goddamn arrogant. He orders her words to come out in front of him like he'd order a coffee. If, you know. He drank. "Say it."

Bella smiles.

"You're a dick," she says, and picks her bag up off the ground. He reaches for her arm and she swings it away; yeah, he could catch her, and he will in a minute, but the important thing is that she walked away here. She kept her dignity and so forth. The ground is wet and deep under her feet, like water bubbling under a sinkhole. If she stands still long enough, the moss will grow over her feet, her ankles, up her legs and into her eye sockets like the corpses of the trees around them. She doesn't intend to let that happen.

Behind her, Edward is still waiting for her to turn around. She looks back at him, standing in the middle of the glade. He looks like a deer, skittish and wide-eyed and delicately boned; she almost laughs out loud at his predator's shyness. He is very beautiful and he has no idea what to do with her.

"Bella," he calls, "I can't stay away from you."

She might really pull this off.

"If you can't stay away," she says to him, softly, because she knows he can hear her, "then keep up."

 

 

"What do you think, kiddo ?" Charlie holds up his car keys, jingles them with a goofy smile. "Dinner and a movie ? Just the two of us. We'll skip the cobbler if you want."

"I'm going to Edward's." She doesn't elaborate. Doesn't say it's board-game night, doesn't lie about a half-season of _Ugly Betty_ on a TiVo the Cullens don't have. Not that they wouldn't buy one the second she asked, and probably tape every show she ever mentioned even once, pathological as that is. She makes a mental note, in fact, to test that theory. "I just ate, anyway."

"You spend all your time at the Cullen house," he says, from the doorway. "I been working late so many nights, I feel like I'm neglecting you."

"You're not."

They stand in silence for a while, both comfortable with the empty sounds of neighbors' houses settling, kids playing in the street, dog collars rattling around skinny necks. Bella brushes her hair and Charlie stares at his feet, keys still awkwardly clutched in his left hand. There's a band-aid wrapped around her pinky; it catches on a long hair and she swears at it, under her breath. Charlie looks up.

"You cut your finger ?"

"Textbook." She sits on the edge of the tub, peels a corner of the band-aid off of her pinky and stares at the cut beneath. "Gross. The paper's like twice as thick as regular paper." She scrapes the adhesive off her skin, pulls the plastic strip all the way off, without wincing. "We're out of antibacterial stuff, aren't we ?"

"You could ask Dr. Cullen to patch it up," her father says. He says it like a joke, his voice is light. When Bella looks up, he's frowning. His face never moved.

"Yeah."

"You can have friends over here, too," he says awkwardly, as if this was a thought that'd been trying to make its way up for several minutes. "I wouldn't mind it. It'd be nice. We could clean up, get some stuff for the den- pillows and... art and junk, maybe a plant. Whatever you think. You can have your girlfriends over, throw a party or something." He sighs. "I just want to see you havin' fun. I know this isn't your favorite place in the world, but-"

"Dad," she cuts in. "It's okay. I don't really care about that stuff."

"Stuff ?"

"You know." She stands up, smoothes down the hem of her shirt, smiles into the mirror and relaxes her jaw, lets it go slack. She's got a blackhead coming on. "Homecoming committee. Getting my nails done. Twitter. Keggers at La Push. Whoever Kelly and Amy and Tiffany are dating this week."

"Kelly and Amy ?"

"Just names." She rolls her eyes and the mirror repeats after her. Her father shrugs, like he's not trying to say anything that would upset her. "Are you surprised ? Did I seem like the yearbook and homecoming type ?"

"You're young."

"Yeah." She glances back up to the mirror and tilts her head, her eyes the color of clouds. "So I hear."

 

 

Edward snaps his head up, away from her; he rolls in her arms and falls off the edge of the bed like a stone, but somehow he's across the room now, in a split-second, and he never even hit the floor.

"I can't-" he chokes. "Can't, Bella, I'm sorry." His hands flutter around his face, landing on his scalp and rubbing absently there, sticking stray hairs up like branches. He was kissing her, and now it seems he's checking for grey hairs or lice or his brain. "I'm sorry. But I can't lose control with you. I'll hurt you." He frowns and fists his fingers in his hair again, and Bella laughs. He looks up, hurt. "What's that ?"

She untangles herself from the blanket and pads across the room on her bare feet, standing almost a full foot shorter than he does; he inclines his neck without thinking, taking her eyes in fully, greedily, adoringly. Drinking. It's a power like she's never known. Her sway. She needs to know how far, how fast, how deep it goes. She strokes the softer skin of his stomach and his breath rumbles out, anguished and aroused and smelling like poppies.

"Don't you hold back," she says, seriously. She lifts up on her toes and puts her warm mouth against his cold one; she sucks his lower lip and he shudders against her. "Don't you _dare_ ," she whispers, "hold back."

Her arms are black and blue the next day and Edward's eyes are glassy, guilty pools.

It's worth it.

 

 

He sneaks around the back of the gym every day, to stare at her in the gap between volleyball and calculus; Jessica notices and elbows her in the side, giggling.

"Your boyfriend's here."

"I know," Bella says. She does know; she felt him in the pit of her stomach when his eyes hit her skin. The ache is simmering in his eyeballs, his jaw. He's drowning in the seconds he's not touching her. He does this every day and for him, it's only getting worse. Bella spikes and misses; it hits Charlene in the back of the head and sails clear up into the bleachers.

Things couldn't be more perfect.

 

 

She lets Mike Newton drive her to the library, just to see Edward's knuckles whiten on the steering wheel when she says she doesn't need a ride home. Bella leans against the car window and smiles down at him sweetly, at the panic that he's swallowing, the nonchalant way he meets her eyes.

"Library ?" he says. "I've got plenty of books."

"Group project for American History. So boring. You don't have a biography of Andrew Jackson, do you ?"

"No," he says darkly, as if that were a personal failure.

"Then I'd better go." She pouts. "See you tomorrow ?"

"Good night, Bella," he says, his voice so grave and sad, kissing her hand; his mouth hovers over the fine bones stringing from wrist to fingertip. It feels like snowflakes. She kisses his cheek and walks away, crunching over the gravel in the parking lot, towards Mike's truck. Edward starts his car and pulls out, past her, like he's going home. He isn't. He'll wait at the curve along the highway, behind the pine trees, before following them all the way to town with no lights on. She knows that he's done it before.

Bella whistles as she walks.

"Now, I don't mind driving at all," Mike says, after she shuts the door. He glances out at the road, where the silver sedan's just passed by, and swallows hard. "But couldn't Edward take you ?"

"He's busy," she says. She turns her smile on him, fiddles with the string of her hoodie. "You're such a pal, Mike."

"Thanks, Bella," Mike grins, goofily. "Better buckle up."

 

 

There's a path behind the library that leads down along the river, back towards her house; she knows, because Charlie's told her more than once to avoid it.

"Kids drink down there, and once in a while the odd homeless guy'll start a fire. It's just better to walk the main road, alright ? Promise me you'll stay by the streetlights." He'd ruffled her hair and sipped his beer and she'd promised.

Now she walks down into the gully, here and there hanging onto a sapling to avoid slipping down into the mud. The woods are quiet and the path is still damp from last week's rain, where it flooded halfway up the ditch. There are fresh tracks and beer cans on it. Up ahead, she hears men's muffled laughter and the faint, thick sound of boots on dead leaves. She doesn't hear Edward anywhere behind her.

That doesn't mean he isn't there.

Bella stops to take her sweater off and fold it carefully, slipping it inside her bag. It's too cold for just a t-shirt but the sweater is brand new; she'd hate to have it ruined.

"Hey baby girl," says the first man to see her. He's probably only a few years older than her, wearing a backwards baseball cap and a stained Seahawks sweatshirt. He sways in her direction. "You looking for a little fun ?"

"No," she says. "Just testing a theory."

"Whatin' a what now ?"

"Hey," a second man calls out, standing up from the fallen log he'd been half-draped over, "hey girl." He drops his beer can and stares down at it for a long second before staring back at her. "Wanna party ?" he asks, in a stupidly hopeful tone.

Bella smiles.

"No," she says. "Not with slobs." Their expressions darken.

"Fuck you, bitch," snaps the Seahawks kid.

"No, fuck you," she says, calmly.

" _Fuck_ you." He takes a step closer and Bella doesn't flinch. "Fuck me ? Fuck _me_ ?" he almost screams, his face turning purple with rage. "You fucking bitch, you uptight bitch-" he reaches out for her and grabs her wrist; behind him, his buddy has grabbed a bottle from the cooler and is coming closer. "You came down here, baby girl-"

Bella rakes the nails of her free hand down the side of his face, spraying bright blood across his chin and collar; he shouts and Bella screams, high-pitched and terrified, and there is a streak across the path. Her wrist is free because the man is pinned against the dead tree and Edward is on top of him, shaking his throat like a terrier would a rat. The second man takes off running blindly down the hill; Bella hears the splash as he hits the creek water. Edward is screaming; it's not even a word, not really, just a sound of rage so lovely and terrible that she covers her ears against it. The man in the Seahawks sweatshirt is crying hysterically. He smells like blood, so much that even she can smell it, taste it in the back of her throat like warm pennies.

"Edward ?" she whispers. She walks around them both, the man trying to claw and pound at Edward's face and Edward holding on, shaking him with every furious exhalation. His eyes are completely black when he looks up at her.

"Blood," he says, raggedly. He stares at the smears where the spray hit her face and throat. "So much. Bella-"

She reaches forward with her bloody hand and traces the circle of his mouth, leaving a thin, sticky trail around his lips. He leans forward ever so slightly and sucks on the warmth of her finger; something escapes him that's halway between a growl and a sigh. Her heart's pounding. He's trembling. This is the moment.

"Now," she whispers.

And Edward rips out his throat.

 

 

He drives her to the edge of the lake, silent and red-mouthed and hands clenched on the wheel, only taking his eyes off the road to stare at her with a hunger so absolute she feels already devoured. It's kind of giving her butterflies. At the edge of the water she kneels down and washes her face and hands. He crouches beside her, smelling her like a dog.

"I told you," he says, his voice no louder than a reed. His misery is soft, humble and young and penitent. He's slurring his vowels through the chunks of flesh in his teeth and it's still so innocent. But he's not hungry; he's sleek and he's warm and he's fed, and everything is different now. He's full of power, ripe beautiful power. His problem is obvious to her: he's ashamed at how unashamed he feels. He is sad and drunk and his veins are on fire and he smells delicious. "I told you what I was."

"And I told you," Bella says, "I don't care."

She reaches for him and he moves to her, kissing her, pushing her against the mossy bank. He wants to be unhappy, she can taste it; so she arches her hips up to his and he moans, mumbles. He's already hard. She slips her hand downwards and he doesn't resist; not with human blood coursing beneath his skin. He rips open the snap of her jeans. He hesitates above her and opens his mouth and Bella bites his throat with her own blunt teeth, the fading pulse there only an imitation of life.

There is no more hesitation after that.

 

 

"Hey there, kiddo," Charlie says, rubbing his eyes. "I thought you were at Jessica's this weekend."

"I was," she says, tying the laces on her sneaker. "But they put on _Labyrinth_ last night and I took a hike. I just wanted to sleep. Did I wake you up, coming in ?"

"No. I was out most of the night, anyway."

"Work ?" She looks him over. "I made coffee."

"Another animal attack," he says. He pours himself a cup and sits across from her at the table. "Found two kids this morning. Been there a couple of days already." He stops himself. "Sorry, that's not- not a real pretty thing. Whatever it was, it got them both down by the creek. Found some beer cans and a cooler. No tracks. But the bite marks-" Charlie shakes his head. "Hell of a way to go."

"That's awful." She gets up, slings a bag over her shoulder, and kisses the top of his head briefly, not lingering. His skin is so warm now, compared to hers, and she can hear the heartbeat through the fragile skin over his skull. It's new. "Be careful. I'm serious. Nobody gets to take a chunk out of my dad." He grins at her, and at her use of that word, with a pure, intense happiness. Bella opens the door and jingles the keys to the truck. The sound's a million churchbells.

"You're in a good mood today," he observes.

"Yeah, I guess." She grins, licking her teeth. "I won a bet," she tells him.

"Who with ?"

"Myself," says Bella.


End file.
